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Monday, December 21, 2015

Back to oil painting after commissions, and large watercolors. This is an experiment in color. The background is transparent darks, chosen to read as distance in the painting. The foreground flowers, leaves and pot have all been painted over a transparent color. All have been overpainted with mixtures that have some opaque paint in them.

My tip today is another great book. I have loved reading "The Oil Painting Course You've Always Wanted" by Kathleen Lochen Staiger.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Sorry again for the lighting. This is on a white background (except the upper right corner).

Another tip for you is Carolyn Anderson's blog. If you subscribe, you won't miss her thoughtful, well written but not frequent posts.Start with this one (link). This one is titled "Four Ridiculously Simple Ways to Improve your Painting". I think for painters, this one is worth printing out and posting in your studio. Only six more shopping days.... (and days to complete the tip list..)

One of best books to improve and reinforce how to paint color is: "How to See Color and Paint It" by Arthur Stern. This book outlines a series of painting exercises. If you complete these exercises, I am certain that you will see an improvement in your own painting.

Monday, December 7, 2015

This is my present small painting. Can you tell what this will be from the block in?
If you look carefully, you can see a faint outline sketch in light blue.
Tip four of my twelve days is the Ultramarine Middle Blue Strabilo CarbOthello 1400/430 Pastel Pencil. Here is a link. This pastel pencil's marks melt in the overlaid oil paint (unlike many other marks which continue to show beneath thin paint).

Friday, December 4, 2015

Another little hummingbird sketch while I complete seasonal commission and large paintings for upcoming show deadlines.

As promised, my third tip is to read this wonderful essay about neutral color by Lori Putnam (link). This blog post is part of a collection of fantastic blog posts which are full of information (and may fill out my tip collection) that Lori curated in October. If you like this post, scroll through October and read them all.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

I am a messy painter. Often I find interesting colors on my face, in my hair, definitely on the backs of my hands at the end of the day. I took care of my clothes. I adopted what has been attributed to Joe Miller (Cheap Joe). I (like Joe) have two sets of clothes: one set has paint on it and the other set is going to have paint on it. For the clothes that I prefer undecorated (yet), this is the best product to make that possible.
It is available here: http://www.thesunmagic.com

It is truly amazing. It has removed fresh and dried oil paint from many types of clothing (my students and their families have used almost an entire jar). Please don't order this if you are a painting friend: it may ruin your Christmas gift!!

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

This is an image of a "View Catcher" from Dick Blick at http://www.dickblick.com/products/viewcatcher/. This year, I learned to use the holes that, on mine, are both on the slide and in the corner of the frame. Looking at an isolated area of a lit setup through these holes, framed by the midvalue grey, allows for an accurate assessment of the color of an area of the still life object. For example, instead of "thinking" of the "red" of the apple, you are able to accurately see the "blue red" in the shadow, the "orange-red" in the light etc. You can also mix your paint and look through the hole and directly compare a knife loaded with your mixture to the piece of the object you are painting. Asking yourself then if your mixture is the correct value or intensity, you can correct your paint mixture, re compare and place the correct color onto your painting in the correct location. This means that you paint what you "see" not what you "think you see". Try it and see how much your paintings improve. You can make a "color isolator" by painting a midvalue grey onto a square piece of mat board and punching a central hole. The advantage of the View catcher, is that the slide also allows you to "frame" a scene. This will allow you to plan a composition or to create a more accurate block in or placement sketch.

This little painting of a "Plover from Sylvan Heights" was juried into the 2015 Women Painters of the Southeast National Exhibition. The show opens this spring and I will post details later.

About Me

Sue ChurchGrant is a former pediatrician, now painter, who loves to paint people, especially children caught unaware. She is inspired by intense color and light . Her blog features small original watercolor or oil studies painted almost daily and her larger paintings can be found at suechurchgrant (dot) com